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Bank sleight of hand w/my money
Reverend_Chaos
Suit Up!Spokane WARegistered User regular
Suit Up!Spokane WARegistered User regular
I had a limited account with Wells Fargo for a year. At the end of the year they cajoled me into applying for a regular account. I then have two accounts while I wait for payroll to catch up to my new account info. During this period money was moved from the old account to the new account. During this time my auto bill-pay I have set up with my car insurance company (set up through the insurance not through the bank) attempts to charge my account....twice, before I catch it. The bank declines to pay, and charges me $35 for insufficient funds for each charge. This was 50 days ago, and have not had the money to pay it off and close the account. The bank calls me on Wednesday to ask if I can pay it back. I tell them not yet, it'll have to wait till my next paycheck (12/30) . He mentions that I have this other account and there is money in it. I tell him that the money has already been spent, the charges just haven't gone through yet. The guy on the phone says they will call me back next week to see if I can pay then. I tell him I'll see what I can do in the meantime. I wake up today and according to the bank they took the money from my active account and paid off the overdrawn account, by overdrawing my active account.
So they wouldn't pull money from that account to pay the actual charges from the insurance company, but they'll take it to pay for their insufficient fund charges??
Obviously this just seems wrong, but is it actually legal for them to do this?
I am in WA state if that matters...and this is the bank paying for their own fees, not a court ordered collections.
So they wouldn't pull money from that account to pay the actual charges from the insurance company, but they'll take it to pay for their insufficient fund charges??
Obviously this just seems wrong, but is it actually legal for them to do this?
I am in WA state if that matters...and this is the bank paying for their own fees, not a court ordered collections.
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Reverend_Chaos on
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Yup, is legit. In your account agreements you agree that your deposits can be used to pay for any negative accounts. Call 'em up and yell at them. Since you were already talking to a collections guy and said when you were going to pay, they might be able to undo some damage.
Edit: Oh, since I used to work at a bank call center, I can let you know to not expect very much sympathy. No offence, but as a rep who's heard a lot of stories, this one was mostly your fault.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
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bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I would also strongly encourage you to file a complaint against the bank with the FDIC. It probably won't go anywhere, but it will probably force them to waste a lawyer's time, which is expensive for them.
Finally, whether or not they reverse the charges on your account (but wait until you get them to do it before you do this), I would encourage you to switch to a credit union. Most credit unions charge much less for overdraft protection than traditional banks. I bank with Alaska Federal (a Washington credit union), and they charge $20 if you don't have another account with them, or $5 if they're just taking from another account. In addition, this fee is waived for anything under $20, and as a rule, they tend to just waive it the first time it happens in a calendar year. I suspect BECU has similar policies.
This bank is raking you over the fucking coals for no other reason than they can, and they know you can't do anything about it because you're poor. They're a bunch of fuckers. You should work their system to mitigate this as much as possible, then leave immediately after that.
Tell me more about this. I had an account with Wachovia for years that recently changed to Wells Fargo and I've been looking for motivation to move on. Are they extra evil beyond the general "omg commercial bank 1% evilbabyeatingmonster" sentiment?
My local bank (not CU) requires either just both a savings and checking account or a balance of $100. Wells fargo told me that I had to have $2000 or I'd get dinged with a $10 charge per account. CU's are much, much better unless you've got a bank that isn't a bag of dicks. But good luck with that, those tend to just be smaller local branches and you're better off at credit unions anyways because of better practices.
They do? I can tell you that on many occasions my accounts with Wells Fargo have sat near empty and they haven't said or charged me a thing. I've been with them for...5 years now and I've never had an issue. I'm also one of those people who actually keeps track of what they're spending though so I never overdraft.
The big 4 area all basically evil because thy have no need to be decent or customer-friendly, as most people will bank with them anyways and it affects margins. Only the smaller guys (CU's) have any incentive to try and lure and keep customers. That is not to say that the big 4 doesn't have decent customer-facing people working for them who try to be helpful. CU's will almost universally offer you better rates (borrowing or saving) and will have friendlier policies w/r/to penalties and fees. The only real advantage from the big banks is number of atms you can accessss w/out fees.
You may also have an older account type with terms that aren't available on newer accounts. Years ago I opened an account with Bankone that had a $250 minimum balance to avoid any bank fees. When Chase bought them out, they had to honor those terms for a few years, even though they did not offer an account with those specific terms, in that specific combination.
You may not get anything, but if you annoy them enough they might refund the overdraft fees.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Shit happens like thinking my next check posted already when it didn't. Most expensive soda I ever bought.
might i direct you to this thread, in which many helpful H/A folks point to neat banking alternatives?
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This one.
The only reason we're still with them is for a few personal reasons and one really good financial adviser at the local branch who has helped us get the most out of their accounts, something I'm sure he'll be fired for at some point since he's a nice dude.
edit: that wasn't mean to be an off topic rant, I'm just adding to the already high list of "get out of Wells Fargo and into a credit union" tip pile.
Yes, it is legal for them to do this. What they issued is called an NSF Returned Item Free, and it is totally legal, and is probably described somewhere in inscrutable fine print in your account agreement. The same thing would have happened if you had bounced a check.
Yes, it is super-shitty.
Yes, you do have a chance to get the NSF fees reversed by calling the bank's 1-800 number and bitching at them. You might be able to get them reversed by going into a branch in person, but with the big corporate banks that's actually less likely.
Yes, this is exactly the reason people are bailing on the big corporate banks and going with regional credit unions, which you should do too.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
it's good to see that a bank finally got caught doing this. Wachovia did it to me a few times back in college when I was more careless with my money and I'd get hit with about $160 in overdraft fees for going over $18 over four transactions because of this.
The key here is to emphasize that this was an error that occurred in the process of moving money within their bank, and you want to forget the whole thing and keep using them (whether you intend to or not). Keep escalating through people on the phone until you get someone who can help you...Be direct on the phone, IE "It seems like this was a mutual mistake, how can we take care of it?"
Your goal with bank personal is to kill with patience and kindness. Don't get mad, don't get impatient, be firm and direct, tell them what you want and don't try to work up to it or come at it sideways. And write down who you talk to and when - I strongly suggest taking notes at a computer while you deal with them on the phone - so that you can keep them to what one person says the next time you call them.
I host a podcast about movies.
Wachovia did this to me when I was so poor I needed to keep track of every penny and was doing so successfully, so I know they do it. I knew exactly what I had, what I'd spent, and how many days ago, and I STILL ended up with a ridiculous number of overdraft fees that should never have been. Shortly after I realized this was happening I had an opportunity to switch to a credit union and did so, and I have never looked back. In my opinion the big 4 are pretty much criminals.
Since I had no idea what the hell to do my mom was nice enough to spend a day on the phone with multiple BoA reps, demanding supervisors and then supervisors of supervisors until they agreed to wave all the fees. From that day forward I checked my bank account on a daily basis.
I'm with Wachovia (which turned into Wells Fargo) now and am seriously considering switching to a credit union.